It's easy to rag this movie as being just another Holocaust movie with corny, improbable and fantastically unrealistic plot which glosses over the horrors of the Holocaust and minimizes the suffering of its victims. But ... BUT ... this is still a good movie. Robin Williams gives one of his better performances as a Jew who tries to instill hope in an otherwise seemingly hopeless situation. True the film offers a stagy and almost romanticized version of life in a Jewish ghetto in World War Two, but the film includes some harrowing scenes of the Germans rounding up the Jews as well as other abuses which remind the audience of the criminal nature of the Nazi German regime. It's not a great movie but it's still watchable.
A surprising feature of this movie is how Robin Williams is made to look like a downtrodden Jew. He not only acts the role, he looks it too. Also there is a poignancy in this film which may seem out of place for such an otherwise depressing setting and the inclusion of the ten-year-old girl is an obvious contrivance, but still the movie is good and avoids the pitfall of trivializing the horrible conditions that so many innocent people were forced to suffer. One can only imagine the utter despair of the ghetto victims, made worse by their isolation. This movie dramatizes what happens when the people are given hope, no matter how slim. It kept them alive.
A surprising feature of this movie is how Robin Williams is made to look like a downtrodden Jew. He not only acts the role, he looks it too. Also there is a poignancy in this film which may seem out of place for such an otherwise depressing setting and the inclusion of the ten-year-old girl is an obvious contrivance, but still the movie is good and avoids the pitfall of trivializing the horrible conditions that so many innocent people were forced to suffer. One can only imagine the utter despair of the ghetto victims, made worse by their isolation. This movie dramatizes what happens when the people are given hope, no matter how slim. It kept them alive.